Windows 7 finding saved files

I have recorded something with audacity and saved it.
I then exported it to mp3 and saved it in my documents, not the audacity folder.

I go to look for it in the folder… it’s not there. It is only there when I select ‘open project’ in audacity itself.

I have tried so many things. I changed my window 7 account to an administrator (which I wasn’t before), no joy. I went onto the control panel to change the file options - I unticked the box that said something like ’ hide certain files’, so if they were hidden then they should be showing now.

Can someone please help me, I’ve been struggling with this for the past few days and really want to get it solved because I’m not able to download my music. Thannk you in advance.

Don’t do that.

The official release version of Audacity is safe, but if you inadvertently ran a malicious program, or one that has been modified / infected with malware, then running as Administrator gives the program full access to destroy the entire computer system and all data, with no safety net.

Even for a non-malicious application, running as Administrator gives the application access to part of the computer system that it should not, and does not expect to have access to. This allows the application to overwrite system files. Hopefully that won’t happen, but it’s a possibility.

Look very carefully at the full path of the file listed in Audacity’s “File menu > Recent Files” list, and write down (pen and paper) the full path to the “lost” file.